ReAnimator: The Beginning of the End
by Arthur Delapore
Summary: Herbert West and James Harkness embark on the first of their adventures in Arkham, Massachusetts, fighting valiantly against such evil forces as Dr. Hill and raging legions of the dead. This tale is finished.
1. Chapter 1

The Re-Animator

The Beginning of the End

Episode One: The Miskatonic University 

The day was cold and dreary, as cold and dreary as the interior of the Miskatonic University where I was a student. I hurried up the great marble steps to the classroom where Professor Armitage was giving his chemistry classes.

I arrived late. The room was jammed with other students and Professor Armitage was already assigning each of the students a partner. I already felt a little idiotic for coming late, and tried to blend in with the rest of the students as Professor Armitage called out names.

"Henry Balsac?" he called. "You can go with Earnest Block." He kept going until I felt he _had _to have reached the end of the list. "Herbert West…" he paused and scanned the names of students in front of him. "You can go with James Harkness." I was surprised--and a little dismayed. There had been a lot of talk around the university about the weird studies of Herbert West, though the rumours were always vague and shadowy. I had never actually met the man and was not exactly anticipating a meeting right now. As these thoughts rose nervously in my mind, I happened to feel a hand touch my shoulder. I spun around to find myself facing a man slightly taller than me and a little older too with dark hair and grave eyes. His smile was a little disquieting; perhaps because it looked so oddly shrewd for so young a face. I gulped and withdrew from the sinister touch.

"Harkness?" the student enquired politely. "I am Herbert West."

Trying to overcome my alarm, I shook hands with my soon-to-be-partner.

"I suppose you've heard of me?" he continued.

"Heard of you?" I trembled unconsciously. "Uh, n-no, of course not! Well, perhaps I heard a rumour or two, but I don't believe every rumour I hear!"

"Then you are of a mind I can handle," Herbert said his oddly phrased sentence with a strange smile as Prof. Armitage declared that the class was adjourned for the day. I timidly followed Herbert out of the classroom and into the cloudy ominous twilight of Arkham. Herbert West seemed oddly edgy about something and I noticed Balsac head towards us.

"Dr. Herbert West?" he said to my silent companion. Herbert West gave an imperceptible nod; he seemed lost in thought.

"Ahem, this is Dr. Balsac speaking," Dr. Balsac said a little louder. "This has to do with Frank."

"_Doctor_ Herbert West?" I interjected, in a tone of surprise. "I had no idea you already had an M.D.!"

Dr. Herbert West looked up at Balsac and me as if he hadn't noticed us before, to our great bewilderment. He looked a little irritated. "I had thought that Prof. Armitage would have chosen us as partners," he said with a slight frown. "This will make our work twice as hard as before."

Dr. Balsac heaved a sigh, but I sensed a bit of relief about him. "Yes, Herbert, I am afraid this semester we shall have to take a rest on our…experiments."

Dr. Balsac turned to leave with another sigh of ardent relief, but there was something I caught in Herbert West's eyes that made me nervous.

"I shall meet you again at the next class," Herbert West finally said to me with a charmingly disarming smile. I wouldn't have been so nervous if it wasn't for those crazy rumours that had been circulated about him. Even _they _wouldn't have made me _that _nervous if it wasn't that they all agreed on one thing: Dr. Herbert West was certainly brilliant and certainly mad.


	2. Chapter 2

Episode Two: "Have you gone mad, Dr. West?"

As I walked down the hallway to my dormitory, I fumbled for the keys to my room. Finally, I found them and opened my door. As I did, an overpowering scent overwhelmed me and for a moment I staggered backward and considered calling Dr. Armitage. But curiosity got the better of me and I turned the lights on in my room.

The first thing I saw was a rotting corpse on the floor.

As the door closed automatically behind me and I collapsed in a senseless heap, I could hear the sound of footsteps behind the door and people shouting and banging on the door of my room. I wondered why they couldn't open the door, and then I remembered that my door had an automatic lock built in.

"Open up, Harkness, we know you're in there!" the voices shouted. "You're under arrest!"

Suddenly, I was jerked upright and I found myself facing Dr. Herbert West. As I stammered, he gave me a violent shake.

"Harkness, snap out of it!" he said in a deadly whisper. I immediately recovered my wits, though I almost wished I hadn't when I heard more of the mayhem outside my door.

"What's going on?" I quavered.

"The police think you're a body snatcher," Herbert returned. "You have to get out of here or they'll arrest you! Come with me."

I shakily consented to this last proposal and the two of us scaled the ivy-clad walls of the Miskatonic dormitories easily. The next thing I knew, I found myself driving in a car alongside Dr. Herbert West down a secluded highway. It took me a few minutes to wonder exactly what we were doing, but when I did wonder, I immediately spoke up:

"Dr. West--" I began.

"I shall explain it all to you right now," Herbert interrupted me. "You see, I put that corpse in your room." As I stared in confusion, he continued, "Dr. Balsac is a coward and unable to cope with the things we have been learning over the past year. I needed to get a new assistant and in you I found a perfect substitute. But I needed to secure your loyalty by forcing it on you as it were."

I would have been indignant, but I didn't really want to get sent to the police station. But inside, I was a perfect froth of anxiety. After all, these events merely confirmed the dread rumours that I had heard suggesting that Dr. West was involved in weird experiments. If his experiments weren't slightly bizarre, after all, he wouldn't have had to go about getting an assistant in such an illegal way.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Dr. Herbert West looked at me with a dreadful smile. "We're going to Bolton," he replied. "That's where my laboratory is. It will also soon be your place of residence. After all, the Miskatonic University won't want you back."

I sighed resignedly.

"I hope you aren't taking this too hard, Harkness," Herbert West continued. "I am hoping that you are not quite so narrow-minded as Dr. Balsac was. Perhaps you too will see the purpose in what I am doing."

"Just what _are _you doing?" I asked as Herbert slowed his car in front of a particularly dilapidated, abandoned section of the factory town of Bolton. The crumbling apartments soared decadently over us and I felt, if nothing else, a profoundly heightened sense of apprehension.

In answer to my question, Dr. West merely took out some keys from his pocket and unlocked the door of the most forlorn of the apartments. We stepped inside the grim interior. The smell was overpoweringly horrible.

"I keep my laboratory here," he explained as he led me deeper into the murky darkness, shutting the door behind us. "It is in the basement."

"And you live here too?" I asked.

"Sometimes," Herbert said cryptically. "Other times I just stay at the Miskatonic. You see, I have one laboratory here and another beneath the Miskatonic Unversity."

As he spoke, the deranged scientist took from the unnameable depths of his coat pocket a key of enormous length and size which he fitted into a keyhole. A door opened inward to reveal a great laboratory. I would have been more eager to enter the room if it wasn't for the fact that the abysmal smell that permeated the whole of the apartment, seemed to grow even more so that it was nearly stifling to me. Swooning in the doorway, I nearly fell but Dr. West impatiently threw a glass of water in my face which helped to revive my consciousness. Covering my face with a handkerchief, I followed my mentor inside the laboratory. The great iron door closed with a clash that reverberated throughout the dusty apartment.

"I advise you to ready your nerves for a shock," Herbert West said in his usual exaggeratedly baroque manner of speech.

"What is it we're going to see?" I trembled.

Dr. West advanced towards a sheeted figure on a table and, like a magician, immediately flicked the sheet off to reveal a corpse. I staggered backwards in horror.

"You--murdered this man!" I gasped.

"No," Herbert said impatiently. "I got him from the morgue."

"But for what purpose?" I asked, as irritably as I dared.

"Have you ever considered the possibility of…bringing someone who is dead to life by various scientific procedures?" Herbert asked.

"Not really," I said. "But then," I added with a testy glance in Dr. West's direction, "I haven't been able to get a degree in anything yet."

Herbert West said: "At this moment, you and I are outcasts of society. But when we reveal to the world what we have learned, they will beg for us to reveal our knowledge."

"What'll we do then?" I asked.

Herbert shook his head. "We'll worry about that when it happens," he said philosophically. "But the question is this: will you help me in my experiments?"

"But what is it you're trying to do?" I asked.

"I am trying to reanimate corpses," Herbert West said simply. But those six words filled me with an unutterable dread.

"Dr. West, are you mad?" I cried in horror. "Help you in your foul experiments? Never!"

"People tend to underestimate me," Herbert West said ruefully. "You must remember that I did not plant that corpse in your room for a birthday surprise."

I remembered that too, and I realized he had me trapped.


	3. Chapter 3

Episode Three: "Wait Until Dark" 

"I guess I don't have a choice," I said resignedly. "What are we to do first?"

Herbert West smiled. "I already have a collection of bodies ready," he said. "All we need to do now is wait until dark."

"Why?" I asked.

"That's just what I always do," Herbert said carelessly. "In the meantime, why don't we take a walk?"

Herbert and I had left the laboratory when we heard a knock on the door. "Who's that?" I whispered. West motioned me to be silent and opened the door. I heard a pause and then:--

"Hello, Dr. Hill," Herbert said, as a tall, lean-faced man entered the house. I saw Herbert discreetly motion for me to stay in hiding behind the sofa and I did as he bade, wondering what this was all about.

Dr. Hill glanced with some guarded hostility at West. "Have you seen that student Harkness?" Dr. Hill asked.

"No--why?" Herbert said, a little nervously.

"Oh, it's just he was caught body snatching," Dr. Hill said sarcastically. "And he just happened to be your partner."

"Well, I can assure you, I have no idea where he is," Herbert said easily. "Now, would you like to stay for tea?"

Dr. Hill wrinkled his nose. "The smell in here is abominable!" he muttered. "Do you keep pets?"

"Only one," West said with a malevolent sidelong glance in my direction. It was all I could do to keep from bounding out from behind the sofa and revealing his duplicity. But I knew that to incriminate him would be to incriminate myself, so I kept silent.

Dr. Hill glanced at West's face again and then turned to leave. West hastily closed the door behind him. I crawled from beneath the sofa, glaring at my mentor.

"What was that all about?" I demanded.

"I have no idea," Herbert West seemed as troubled as I. "How could Dr. Hill have known where I lived?"

"And if we get caught, who knows what they'll do to us," I said, adding my own fears. "In Arkham, they've got pretty stiff laws about body-snatching."

"I know," Herbert said grimly. "They're almost as bad as the speeding tickets. But we'll find a way," he said, his eyes cold and bright behind his spectacles. "We must. Only then will we be able to discover the secrets of life itself. Come on," he continued, glancing outside. "It's getting dark already. Let's make a night of it!"

For some reason, I felt as though I, too, were capturing some of his morbid enthusiasm, for the thought of escape and a way of proving my innocence never occurred to me. All I could think of was Herbert West and his queer studies and what I could do to help him reach his strange goal of…_re-animating life!_

Ah, those words that before filled me with terror now seemed to make every nerve and atom of my being tingle with excitement! If West had turned to me and said that he had no use for me now as an assistant and that I could resume my monotonous life as a student at Miskatonic, I would have begged him to let me aid him in his strange discoveries anyhow. There seemed nothing else on earth but this laboratory, my mentor, the pale moon, the corpse, and the dark shadows that crept stealthily about us as we prepared the operating table for its strange and terrible use.

The corpse was well preserved; Dr. West must have used some embalming solution, for it looked as though it had only died a second ago. The corpse did not fill me with fear however. Herbert West's presence—his cool, calm attitude towards the whole situation—seemed to hypnotize my senses so that I merely followed his orders unquestioningly without even really thinking. In fact, I only remember vaguely that he injected the thing with some glowing, effervescent solution.

I remember clearly what happened next. A horrible twitching came over the whole of the corpse and I drew backwards in terror. West also had grown pale, but he remained faithfully next to the corpse, watching it to see what it would do. Gradually, it rose, walked towards the laboratory door, and collapsed into a puddle of indescribable putrescence.

Herbert looked disturbed but did not allow me the luxury of passing out on the floor. As he shook me to revive my consciousness, we both heard a sound that filled our hearts with terror: the sound of a knocking on our door.

"Come with me," Herbert said, his face paling in the moonlight as we both rushed out of the laboratory and swiftly closed the steel door. Fortunately, the door closed over the portion of the floor that the corpse had dissolved over.

The knocking continued, this time louder and more insistent. West pulled his revolver out ("Just in case," he explained dryly.) and opened the door. Dr. Hill stared at Herbert and he stared at me.

"I _knew _you were in on something with him," Dr. Hill said, his flinty unblinking eyes fixed on Herbert. Herbert West's face didn't change, but I saw his eyes flicker slightly.  
Dr. Hill hadn't noticed the gun. He was still cackling dryly at us.

"He seems to be in a heightened state of emotion, possibly bordering on hysteria," West remarked uneasily to me.

"You'll never get away with this—this—" Dr. Hill never finished his sentence, for he suddenly and unexpectedly toppled forward.


	4. Chapter 4

Episode Four: The Strange Case of Dr. Hill 

It was not Hill's purpose to faint in the arms of Dr. Herbert West, but that was unfortunately what happened. Herbert was as surprised as I was at Dr. Hill's sudden loss of consciousness, but we both managed to recover ourselves and drag the prostrate professor into the unhallowed interior of West's house. West checked the older man's pulse, and his face grew grave.

"He's dead," he frowned. "Must have had a heart attack. Maybe he was suffering from delirium and that's why he came here in the dead of night like this."

I shuddered. "I guess we should call the police," I said, reaching for the phone. Herbert stayed my hand, however, and when I glanced at him, I saw a strange sparkle in his eyes. 

"My biggest problem has always been fresh bodies," he said, his eyes gleaming unnaturally. "Well, this is as fresh a body as any! Harkness," he looked at me with a look that chilled my soul. "Let's get to work!"

I nodded quickly. "Very well," I said, hastening to open the laboratory door as West, despite his smallish frame, managed to lift Dr. Hill and carry him into the 'operating room.'

"Is the table ready?" West asked me.

I glanced at it. "Pretty much," I said. "Except that it isn't very clean after our last subject."

Herbert West uneconomically dumped a whole pail of chlorine on the operating table. "That should do it," he announced. "Are you ready?"

"Yes, Dr. West," I said uneasily.

The rest of the procedure we conducted silently. Herbert turned a light on above the operating table and fitted some gloves on, indicating that I do the same. Then we both lifted Dr. Hill (rather awkwardly since neither of us were physically fit for such activities) and managed to haul him onto our experiment table.

"Hand me that vial over there, Harkness," Herbert said, his eyes fixed intently on the corpse. I did as he bade, watching with some curiosity and hoping against hope that our experiment would not end in failure as the last one had.

Herbert took a syringe and filled it to the top with the green glowing liquid. We both waited with baited breath as he measured the solution to exactly 16mm. We glanced at each other, and then—

Dr. Hill suddenly and almost imperceptibly began breathing. I could tell he was still unconscious, but he was definitely alive.

"You did it!" I cried. "He's alive!"

West looked at me with a look of profound and abject horror. "Harkness…" he said slowly, his voice almost a whisper. "_I didn't inject him yet._"

It took a moment for the full import of these words to dawn on me, but when they did I felt the same terror that seemed to grip my friend.

"If he wakes up…" I said.

Herbert West did not allow me to finish my sentence. "We have to get him out of here," he said. We seized the chlorine soaked professor and began with all our might to lift him and carry him out of the laboratory. He seemed to be regaining consciousness fast, and every sound he made filled us with mute fear. We hauled him out of the house and dumped him unceremoniously on the porch and then beat a hasty retreat back into the house.

"Hopefully he'll think he just hallucinated," West told me as we breathlessly watched Dr. Hill through the curtains of one of the windows. The doctor sat up in befuddlement as West, his hands shaking slightly, phoned the hospital in Arkham and explained what happened, carefully leaving out the details of our experimentation on Hill before he awoke.

The Arkham people were fast. The ambulance arrived before Dr. Hill fully regained consciousness. In the meantime, Herbert and I were ministering to Hill, making certain that he didn't have another heart attack before they came. I noticed that among the doctors who arrived was a fellow about my age who glanced at West with a look that I can only describe as one of trepidation.

"Dan!" Herbert said in surprise when he saw the man. Dan looked as if he had been in the process of hiding behind one of the other doctors, and when he saw West, he fairly ran back into the ambulance before my friend could say any more.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"An idiot," West muttered. "A half-wit who could not understand the importance of my experiments. Such men make up our generation. It wasn't always like that."

"Oh, it wasn't?"

"No. Why, in the seventeenth century, they would have understood. In the eighteenth century they would have assisted. In the nineteenth century they would have written treatises on my work. But we are in the twentieth century—an era of hollow men."

"I didn't know you liked T.S. Eliot," I remarked. One of the doctors came up to us.

"Looks like Dr. Hill will be fine," the doctor told us. "Lucky that he decided to have a heart attack outside _your _house," he added, glancing at West approvingly. West had garnered a reputation for being a great physician. He was the certainly the only doctor _I _liked.

"Anyway," the doctor continued. "It might not hurt if you come with us to Arkham and stay overnight while we keep an eye on him."

Herbert West agreed and he and I got in his car and drove with the ambulance to Arkham. Once we reached Arkham, we stopped at a hotel and West rented a room.

"They shan't need me, really," West explained to me as we inspected our hotel room. "The doctor told me that he only wants me in town just in case, but they have a whole team of scientists there to keep an eye on Hill. A pity. I should have liked to operate on him."

"He certainly owes you his life," I told my mentor. "But, West, I need to talk to you about these experiments. They're all very well and good, but now that I'm out of Bolton, I realize that I can't spend my whole life doing re-animation experiments with you. I have my own life to live. I want to become a great scientist—"

"And you will!" West returned with a sinister smile.

"But not that kind of scientist," I protested. "Look, Herbert, I understand that you're interested in re-animating dead people. That's all right. I won't tell the police about you as long as you just keep working on _dead _people. But why drag _me _into your experiments? What good am I to you? I'm not as experienced as you, not as devoted…what's the point?"

"The point is that I simply can't do it alone," West interrupted. "I'm surprised at you, James. I should have thought that you would have at least a slight interest in the secrets of the universe. Now I find that you are just as shallow as the other college people. Very well, then. If you want to quit working with me, then I won't stop you. You may get your degrees and your prestige, but I will continue to do what I believe and know to be right. Goodbye, James."

That did it. Immediately, I felt an irrational shame at my reluctance and hesitated, tottering on the threshold of independence. I did not realize then—though I may have half-guessed—that West's words had been cleverly calculated to provoke this response from me, but at that moment, I was too shamed and embarrassed to think this.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly. "I'll—I guess I'll keep helping you."

Herbert nodded. "I'm glad you changed your mind, James," he said. "For I may need you pretty soon."


	5. Chapter 5

**Episode Five: From Bolton to Boston**

Life is strange, especially when lived in a place like Arkham near a person like Doctor Herbert West. Because of the nature of the story I am explaining, it may be necessary for me to explain what has happened in case the reader may—in the earnestness of trying to discern what might happen next—have forgotten. An overview of the events that have transpired so far are as follows:

My name is James Harkness and I am a native of the Massachusetts town of Starkhampton. I came to Arkham, MA to get a degree in chemistry at the famed Miskatonic University. There, I met Dr. Herbert West—Re-Animator. I endow him with this title because Dr. West is to all intents and purposes 'mad' and bent on discovering how to re-animate the dead. I became, unfortunately, his accomplice and assisted him in his nightly experiments. We met up with West's nemesis, Dr. Hill, who had a heart attack that did not kill him but left him incapacitated. West and I were on the scene and therefore able to save our opponent from an unpleasant death, but the affair with Dr. Hill also brought us from Bolton to Arkham. It is in Arkham—in a dingy hotel near Meadow Hill—that the last episode ended and the present episode begins…

I dreamt dreams strange and terrible—what West dreamt, only he and his Creator could know. I was unable to sleep properly and awoke in the small hours in a cold sweat. This is not really very surprising, as any person who had seen the things I had and had to do things I had had to do would most likely react in a similar fashion, but it was unpleasant all the same. I glanced at West and saw that he was sleeping the slumber of the innocent. I was just lying back on the bed to try to catch a few more hours of sleep when West suddenly sat bolt upright, causing me to jump nervously.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"We have to get to Boston as soon as possible," Herbert told me, getting out of bed. "Hold on just a moment." I watched mutely as he dialed a number on our hotel phone.

"St. Mary's Hospital?" he said calmly. "This is Dr. Herbert West. Tell me: am I needed any longer for Dr. Hill's surgery? Oh, he's recovered? Very well, thank you."

He hung up. "Get dressed, James," Herbert told me. "We're leaving for Boston now."

"Boston?" I repeated as I awkwardly pulled my coat and shoes on. "But that's a two hour drive! What's the point?"

"The point is that we need to go there," he said, obviously unwilling to divulge any more information. I had learned from experience that West usually knew what he was doing, so I kept silent and followed him out of the hotel to the car.

We drove in silence, West obviously thinking about something, and I trying to catch up on my interrupted sleep. I had just fallen asleep when West said, "We're in Boston!"

I awoke and looked about. The city was grey and deserted as it was still extremely early in the day, but I could see the lovely colonial meeting house in the square with the ornate clock on the watchtower. I was just admiring the scenery when West abruptly turned down a road that contained residential houses. He stopped at a tall mansion that looked as if it dated at least to the Victorian or eighteenth century.

"Is this your house?" I asked.

West nodded. "I'm renting it," he muttered. "And my rent is overdue. I'm not rich, James."

"Nice place, though," I said. "Let me guess: the basement has a laboratory."

Herbert flashed me a smile. "Right," he said. "And we're going to set up shop here, since Dr. Hill knows about my place in Bolton."

"Sounds good," said I. "Of course, you never know. He might decide to come here in the middle of the night and have a heart attack again."

"I doubt that," West said seriously. "He's going to be in the hospital for at least several weeks. They won't let him out for a while. We're safe."

"I hope you're right," I said. I was still uneasy about West's experiments, but I told myself that perhaps, like most young experimenters, he would tire of his morbid theories and give up his quest for re-animation. Or, maybe he wouldn't. But I had gone too far now to abandon him.

West and I stepped out of the car and mounted the marble steps of the house. My friend fumbled in his pocket for his key and inserted it into the grating lock of the house. The great door swung open and we swept inside the darkened house.

"Once we get settled in here," West told me. "We can begin searching the crypts for fresh bodies. That's the most important element of the re-animation process. Fresh bodies. Otherwise, the re-agent won't—"

West was interrupted by a sound. It was a soft sound but startled us nonetheless by its sheer unexpectedness. It was the sound of a door closing in a room upstairs.

West and I glanced at each other and then raced as quietly and speedily as possible up the stairs to see what could have caused the sound. We were both prepared for the worst, and I think both of us had visions of zombies dancing in our heads.

Nothing met us immediately on the landing. We looked cautiously down the hallway. West drew his revolver out, his hand shaking almost imperceptibly, and he and I crossed the landing towards one of the doors in the upstairs hallway.

"This must be where the sound came from," West breathed. We paused for an instant, readying ourselves for whatever horror might meet our eyes. With one swift jerk West flung open the door.

The silence that met us was almost anticlimactic. Herbert entered the room, I following, and we looked about us. The room was a bedroom, laced with velvet hangings and tastefully decorated with the Victorian love for clutter (NOTE: "Victorian love for clutter" sounds familiar.). What caught my eyes however was something completely different. A young woman with golden hair was lying gracefully on the bed asleep. The New England sunlight that sifted through the lacey curtains shone on her golden hair in a becoming fashion. She looked for all the world like something out of a painting. Herbert, however, was not assailed as I was by these sentimental thoughts. He looked annoyed. Putting his revolver back in his coat pocket, he cleared his throat softly, but with a hint of severity.

"May I ask, ma'am, who you are and what you are doing in my bedroom?" West asked—I know this sounds like an 'adult scene', but I can't help that.

The young woman when she sat up looked just as shocked and disturbed to see us as we would have been if we had stumbled across that aforementioned zombie.

"Oh! I'm sorry," she said quickly, her voice soft and dismayed as she stood up quickly. "I just fell asleep here, and I didn't know you were coming—"

"That's all right," West said, a little less testily. "But I'd like to know why you decided to come here and how you got in my house in the first place."

"Oh, that's easy," she said. "I'm Molly Ward, your landlord's daughter. I just love this house and when you said that you were moving out for a few months, I thought you wouldn't mind if I came over and explored the house a bit. You don't mind, do you?" she asked, her eyes dark with distress (NOTE: that "eyes dark with distress" bit sounds awfully familiar too…I might be accidentally plagiarizing some poor author. If so, I didn't mean to. Anyway, back to the episode at hand.)

"No, of course not," West assured her.

"Well, I'd better leave now," she said, smiling shyly. West did not reply but merely watched her as she went past us down the hallway towards the staircase.

"It's a wonderful house, isn't it?" she asked Herbert as we went downstairs. "I'm always asking my father not to raise the rent on you—he just doesn't understand that some people aren't millionaires. He said that the people around here heard strange noises coming from the basement and that he was thinking of evicting you. I told him there was nothing wrong here, though, and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to check your basement just so that I could prove to him that you weren't doing anything illegal or anything."

The girl rattled on, but West and I weren't listening anymore. A cold sweat had broken out on my brow and all the colour in West's face had drained out, turning his visage a deathly pale, so that I almost feared that he would faint. What had this silly girl unknowingly seen down there?

"Did you—see anything?" West asked presently.

"Oh, no," she said lightly. "I wasn't able to go down there. It was locked. But I would like it if you would let me see your basement just so I could tell my father that there isn't anything down there."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question," Herbert said. "I have been doing some experiments down there with some toxic substances, and some of the fumes that they emit are quite deadly. The last thing I need is for my landlord's daughter to get sick on account of me."

Molly smiled trustingly in a way that made my heart ache. "Very well," she said. "Goodbye, Mr. West and—"

"I'm James Harkness," I introduced myself.

"And Mr. Harkness," she finished with a winning smile. "I'll have to come back and visit you both some time. And don't worry," she added to Herbert. "I won't let my father give you a hard time about the rent. He's a grump, but he isn't too greedy."

After Molly left, I glanced at Herbert. "I guess she likes you," I said.

"I don't know about that," Herbert said, thinking about something else. "She acts like that with everyone. But it looks to me like _you_ like her."

"Well, she's pretty, but I'm not going to go loopy over her," I muttered. "She looks like a bubblehead blonde."

West nodded briefly. "Let's check the basement and make sure she didn't go down there."


	6. Chapter 6

**Episode Six: A Conversation**

The rest of the day we spent checking the basement laboratory. West was relieved to find that everything was untouched and appeared to be in the same state as he had left it a few months ago. I hardly knew what to think, for my mind was in a maelstrom of conflicting emotions after meeting Molly Ward and after settling in with Herbert West in his house.

"I suppose that there's no way that I could stay somewhere else?" I muttered.

"Not right now," was the cold reply. "It's getting late. Perhaps we'd better retire for the night."

I followed West silently upstairs to the bedroom, the one we had seen Molly Ward in. A smell of flowers seemed to linger in the air, and an image came to me unbidden of sweet grey eyes, soft, golden curls and crimson lips. This vision abruptly disappeared from my mind, however, and was replaced with the spectacled West who was gazing intently out of the window at the town of Boston.

"We'll have to find some fresh bodies," West mused.

"Oh, can we get off that?" I asked impatiently.

Herbert West turned to me, his young face set with an intensity that chilled me. "No, we can't," he returned. "I thought you were going to help me. Will you just make your mind up once and for all whether you're in this with me or not?"

"I'm sticking with you," I said hurriedly. "It's just that I feel a little nervous, I guess."

"That's all right," West said soothingly. "You're probably just upset because of Miss Ward. You'll be all right by tomorrow."

I felt a little irritated, but decided—for the sake of our friendship—that I would keep silent. If by this time, dear reader, you are still wondering why I kept up my strange relationship with Dr. Herbert West, then you have not been paying attention very well. Though West was obnoxious and something of a know-it-all at times, there was also something inexplicably likeable about his maniacal intensity and not to mention, he was an interesting fellow to hang around with.

However, on this evening as I prepared to retire for the night, I was beginning to feel a little edgy. After all, what _was _I going to do with myself? I could not live with Herbert West all my life—even though he obviously thought I could. Also, I got the impression that West was pretty sure that he was on the verge of perfecting his 're-agent', while I could not help but be skeptical about his optimism. What if it took years for us to get it to even a mildly workable state? What about my own future--what job would I have after skipping whole semesters at college? And what of my social life—what if I chose to marry or something (it was Miss Ward who had put that disturbing idea into my head)? These thoughts went through my mind, but West seemed to pay them no heed. He lay in bed staring at the ceiling dreamily as I brushed my teeth with an air of silent irritation.

"You know, you seem a little anxious, James," Herbert said languidly from the bed. "What's up?"

I hesitated between vigorous strokes with the toothbrush and considered telling him my concerns.

"I—it's nothing, Herbert," I said, brushing my teeth more violently.

"Oh." Herbert said.

"Well, it's just—look, I know you'll get angry with me, but the truth is that I'm still a little worried about what job I'll have when you—when we're done experimenting."

"Oh, is that all that's worrying you?" West asked.

"No, but that's a lot of what's worrying me," I said, carefully omitting my thoughts on Molly.

"Well, if that's your only problem, then I've already figured out how to solve it," West yawned languorously. "I've already signed us both up at the Miskatonic University. We're to work as assistant chemists."

"What!" I dropped my toothbrush and scrambled to pick it up. "What are you talking about? Assistant chemists? Why, I barely _began _my course on chemistry!"

"Maybe _you _did, but I didn't," Herbert returned. "And I can help you with the harder parts of the job. If you just stick with me we'll be fine and you'll learn more about chemistry from me than you would at any class."

"Oh—all right."

"So now are you happy?"

"Yes, I suppose…I mean, not really…"

"Well, _what's the problem now?_" West said impatiently.

"I'll guess you'll laugh at me, but I was wondering what I would do if I happened to fall in love or something and wanted to settle down," I finally said, rinsing my toothbrush off and placing it in its holder.

"James. You can't be serious. You would risk losing the key to the secret of life itself just for some _girl_?"

"No, I didn't say that," I said with dignity. "I just meant that I might want to marry someone, in which case I would need a job that provided a higher income."

There was an unpleasant silence. "We'll worry about that when it happens," West said ominously.

"It may already have happened."

There was another and longer silence. "West?" I said tentatively.

"What?" was the unpleasant reply.

"I still mean to help you."

"How _can _you help me if you—_marry_?" West spat the word out as if it was an obscene blasphemy. "An endeavor like mine can only be accomplished if you devote your whole life, every bit of your energy and being into it! You _must _help me, James, and you _can't _help me if you—do that!"

"I'll think about it," I said vaguely. After all, I wasn't completely enamored with Molly yet, and it was possible that my feelings would wear off. "For now, let's just pretend I never brought the subject up."

Herbert West looked suspicious. "So you're sticking with me?"

"I'm sticking with you."

Herbert glanced at me doubtfully, but said, "Goodnight, James."

"Goodnight, Herbert."


	7. Chapter 7

**Episode Seven: The Horror in the Chamber**

The morning came and I awoke at about eight in the morning. I felt in much better spirits than I had before, probably because for the first time in a while I had gotten a full night's sleep. I headed out of my bedroom and down the hallway past the dining room. Herbert West's room lay to my left and I cautiously opened the door to see whether he was awake, as I was feeling rather hungry and was in need of some breakfast.

Herbert West was still in bed, though he was awake. "What time is it?" he demanded

"About eight," I replied.

"We'd better head to Arkham, then," West informed me. "Professor Halsey is probably already wondering where we are."

"Halsey?" I repeated. "Isn't he the dean of the Miskatonic Medical School?"

"Yes, and he hates my guts," West said dryly.

"That's odd," I said automatically.

"Well, he doesn't really hate my guts," West said. "But he doesn't really like me either. To tell you the truth, he's kind of suspicious of me."

"And he's our supervisor?" I groaned as I followed him out of the room downstairs to the car.

"Don't worry about it," West said. "I cleared up your reputation with the heads of the Miskatonic. They won't give you any more trouble about that body snatching business."

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Why go into the details?" West returned. I followed him into the car. I half-suspected that he must have used some sinister method—such as blackmail—to get me back into the university, but I said nothing since I had no evidence of this.

Once we reached the Miskatonic and met Dean Halsey, however, my suspicions were heightened. Halsey was a middle-aged man with white hair and a business suit, and he watched West and me—in particular, West—with evident distaste.

"Your rooms in the dormitory are all in proper working order," Halsey informed us coldly. "After you have re-settled there, please clean the Miskatonic lab #1—thoroughly."

"Very well, Professor Halsey," I said. Halsey left the room and left West and me to head to the dormitory and unpack. After we had finished doing this, I said, "I guess we should go to the laboratory."

It would be no use in going into the details of what we did that day, for they were irrelevant. I shall merely move the reader forward to the evening of that same day, when I found myself trudging back to the dormitory where West was already lodged. I had been doing some extra studying at the Miskatonic University's library—the Orne Library—and I was ready to go to sleep.

The dormitory halls were silent and empty. I felt a wave of apprehension come over me, and for some reason, I felt in my pocket for my gun which I kept with me all the time, just in case. West's room was only a few steps away, and I felt a sort of warning flash into my brain and the thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to check and make sure that he was all right. Suddenly, I felt fingers tighten around my throat, choking me, and I felt myself being dragged backwards down the hallway. I struggled, but it was no use. I was alarmed not only for my own safety, but for the safety of my friend, who I was convinced was in danger. I felt the horrible thing tighten its grip on me, and I heard a whispering voice rasp in my ear, "It's too late for your friend. You'd better leave while you have a chance!"

I managed to break free from the horror and turned around in time to see a grinning thing scuttle past me out of the dormitory. I ignored it though, racing back down the hallway towards my friend's room. I pounded frantically on the locked door, calling my friend's name over and over again until I ran out of breath. Finally, with a burst of energy, I managed to knock the door open. Sprawling on the floor, I looked up to see a sight that I had hoped only existed in nightmares.

Two figures were outlined in the harsh moonlight that spilled into the room; one, the form of my unconscious friend and the other a thing much like the creature that had seized me earlier. The foul thing was gripping my friend in an agonizingly tight grip and I could see blood staining his shirt in crimson streaks. He was obviously severely wounded, and as I struggled dizzily upright to aim at the blasphemous eidolon, I could see it put its horrible mouth on my friend's throat. I could barely keep my eyes open, my stomach turning in revulsion as I fired twice at the creature. It lifted its face, its lips smeared with fresh blood and I fired again and again and again. Under the impact of the bullets, the thing literally disintegrated, but not before its foul mouth twisted into a grin that shall linger and sneer in my nightmares long afterwards.

West collapsed senselessly on the floor. I hurried towards him, slipping slightly on the blood which streaked the floor beneath me. How much of it was the zombie's and how much of it was my friend's, I feared to guess as well as the question of how long the thing had been feeding off his blood. His hair was stained and there were deep gashes all over him.

As I moved closer, he half-rose abruptly coughing up blood. He gave a soft moan and I whispered, "West—how do you feel?"

"Not too well," he said, with a weak smile as he stood up unsteadily.

"Are you sure you feel well enough to get up?" I asked.

"Don't be an old woman. I'll be all right," West said. "And I have a feeling we need to get out of here."

"Why?" I asked. "And for heaven's sake, where did that thing come from? There was another one downstairs!"

"Another?" Herbert West said, gripping my sleeve, his eyes finally dimming with a look of terror. But he soon recovered his composure. "Never mind. I'll figure something out. There are a lot of them out there probably, and they won't be long in getting here."

"You mean there are more of those things?" I whispered in horror. "But what are they?"

Then the answer dawned on me. "West—how many of these things have you re-animated?"

West looked at me uneasily. "A lot."

"A lot!" Images of the two zombies I had just met up with were still fresh in my mind. "If they get here, we're in trouble."

"You have a gift for understatement," West said dryly. "I suggest that instead of pumping me for more information about my experiments, you leave Arkham right now. I'll try to handle these things myself. It's my fault they're around in the first place."

Before I could reply, a figure darkened the doorway leading into the hallway. I stood up instantly, my revolver ready, but as I pulled the trigger I realized with a sinking heart that I had used up the last of my cartridges on the previous zombie. I sprung with all my might at the thing in the doorway, at the same time shouting, "West, get out! I'll hold them off! Take the re-agent and get out!"

My fingers came in contact with the rotting, revolting flesh of my opponent, but I hung on as the creature, momentarily stunned by my attack, fell backwards on the smooth floor of the hallway. I clung tenaciously to the creature, trying to pin the dirty claws to the ground, but at the same time I saw a whole group of the Un-Dead grinning and running towards me. I stood up, trying to kick the zombie away from me, but my opponent seemed to suddenly recover his strength and seized my throat with both claws, his horrible rotting lips parting to reveal blood-stained, yellowed teeth. As I closed my eyes, blindly fighting to get free, I suddenly felt the death-hold on my throat loosen. My eyes flashed open in time to see the zombie fall forward, dead. I saw West in front of me holding two empty syringes.

"An overdose of the re-agent kills them," he explained to me. "It's the only way we can fight them without a gun. Quick, get in here."

He pulled me in his room and shut the door just as the rest of the zombies reached us. We could hear them banging viciously from the outside.

"It won't hold much longer," I said ruefully. "If I could open it, they can open it."

"But by the time they open it, we won't be here," West grinned. "Come on, help me with this."

I saw him struggling with bloodied fingers to get the window open. I rushed over to help him and with the aid of West's medical bag, smashed the window open. Then, both of us squirmed our way out the window, landing in the shrubbery outside the Miskatonic dormitory.

"We've got to call the police," I panted. "They'll kill everyone in Arkham."

"It probably won't be the first time," West muttered. "But actually, you don't need to worry about that. They're not after anyone but me and the re-agent. We have to get to the Christchurch Cemetery before the rest of them wake up."

"The rest?" I repeated.

"Look," West said. "A year back I tried my re-agent out—not this one but an earlier version of it—on lots of the corpses in the cemetery here. Nothing happened so I just forgot about them. But it looks like—"

"Now they're waking up," I finished.

West nodded. "And they're screaming mad. I don't know what they're up to, but we've got to stop them."

I helped West as we both went as speedily as we could to my car. We got in and I started the engine up and started driving towards Christchurch Cemetery. West looked frailer than he had before and I noticed that the crimson stains on his white shirt seemed to be bleeding through to the car seat.

"My God, West, you're still bleeding," I said. "I'm turning around and heading to a hospital. You've already lost a lot of blood already."

West leaned his head back and laughed in a way that convinced me that the man was completely mad.

"You're crazy!" I muttered. "I'm turning around."

"Don't," he said, a little more seriously. "We've got to stop them before they _do _get all over the town. And the police won't be any help." He snickered again. "Guns can't really kill these things. You were just lucky back there because the one that had me was already in bad shape. But most of them will consider a revolver as no more than just a B-B gun."

"If you say so," I said, though West was already refilling his two syringes with the glowing green serum. His face was now fixed with a cold intensity of purpose, and I glanced up at the stars grimly wondering why it had had to be _my _fate to get mixed up with a mad genius like Herbert West.


	8. Chapter 8

Episode Eight: Christchurch Cemetery—and after 

Truth is always more fearful than fiction, and this case was no different. We reached the cemetery unmolested. The moon shone down on us as we trudged between the dismal abodes of the dead. West was obviously searching for something that he expected to see. When he saw one of the crypts ahead of us and its broken door, he turned to me.

"That's where they probably are," he said grimly.

"Right you are, Mr. West," a voice behind us caused us both to start and turn. We found ourselves facing Dr. Hill. He was pointing a gun directly at West.

"What do you want?" Herbert asked, looking at Dr. Hill with distaste.

Dr. Hill was staring covetously at the glowing syringes West was holding. Immediately it flashed into both our minds what Hill was up to. Herbert started away from Dr. Hill, but the older man seized him in a powerful grip. However, my friend managed to drop the syringes and kicked them towards me.

"Take them, Harkness!" he gasped, struggling against his rival. "Take them--leave--and get help!"

Dr. Hill struck West to insensibility with his revolver and turned to me, pointing the muzzle of the gun at my head.

"Give me the serum," he intoned.

I looked at West and said, "Dr. Hill, what's going on is much more important and dangerous than you think. In that crypt--"

"I know what's in that crypt, you fool!" Hill spat at me. "Now give me the serum."

I remained silent.

"Give me the serum, or I'll shoot him," he gestured towards West who he was still holding.

"Don't give it to him, Harkness," West said softly. "He'll just create more of them."

"Oh, I will, will I?" Dr. Hill mimicked as I threw the syringes down, kicking them away from him. "And what do you think you've done? Now all of Arkham will be destroyed—and all because of you."  
"Shut up," I burst out. "And let him go or I'll destroy the rest of the re-agent that I have hidden."

Dr. Hill's face froze and for a moment I thought he was going to shoot me. But he just threw West to the ground and turned to me, gripping my throat with one hand and holding the revolver to my head with the other.

"Now," he hissed. "Where is the rest of the serum?"

As I gasped for breath, West came up behind Dr. Hill.

"You may as well let him go, Hill," he said, his voice crisp and cold. Hill released me and turned to face him. West's eyes were burning with a mad light and his lips held the faint traces of a sardonic smile.

"What did you do to the serum?" Dr. Hill hissed, seizing him by the coat.

"It's somewhere where you can't get it," West returned.

Dr. Hill and West looked at each other and the searing enmity that seemed to radiate from each of them was uncomfortable to watch. The pure hatred that covered Hill's face and the cold, ironic smile on the young experimenter's lips chilled me. Finally, Hill said:

"So you've hidden it? Well, I can fix that." He seized West by the throat and jerked the young man towards him. "I'll torture you until you tell me where you hid it." He pulled from his pocket a long, thin knife and held it lingeringly over West. Slowly, it began to descend…

And then the horrors from the crypt emerged suddenly, howling like the damned. I don't think Hill expected it to happen—I don't know what he expected—he was totally mad. But West expected it. I saw the mad smile on his face as Hill released him, dropping the knife and aiming the gun at the dead creatures that were springing and hopping madly among the headstones. West seized my arm and pulled me towards the gate of the cemetery, hissing in my ear, "The watering system. Turn it on!"

"You mean the sprinklers for the plants?" I asked. West nodded. I shrugged and took hold of the handle for the sprinklers near the cemetery wall and yanked it down. Immediately the sprinklers came on. As the water hit the mad zombies, they howled with pain and anguish, disintegrating before my eyes.

"I injected the re-agent in the water system while Hill was talking to you," West told me. Hill had stumbled out of the cemetery, unharmed but totally mad. We watched as the dead creatures died and fell into the muddy earth. There was one, though, that managed to stumble towards us, its talons slashing the air. West's eyes flickered as he shrank away, saying, "Don't let it get to you—they try to suck your life out—" His voice died away as the thing seized him, sinking its grimy teeth into his throat as West struggled, gasping for breath. I looked around frantically for something to fight the thing. The thing had almost brought its foul, decaying lips close to my friend's pale face when I seized a hose and turned its spray of greenish water full on the creature. It immediately disintegrated into a revolting, nauseous bubbling mass, just as the creature West and I first re-animated had looked back in Bolton.

West collapsed to the ground, and to my astonishment I saw a girl with beautiful golden hair run out and catch him in her arms. She was shaking with fright and whispered to me, "Is he alive?"

I nodded, too stunned to speak. "Molly?" I managed to whisper.

"You're James, aren't you?" her sweet smile turned on me. West lay still unconscious in her arms. She ran her fingers through his dark, blood-stained hair and kissed his pale face.

I glanced up at the steeple of Christchurch towering over us and breathed a silent prayer of gratitude that the night was finally over.

Two months later, I was invited to a Christmas celebration at the Miskatonic University, by none other than Dean Halsey. As I drove up, his daughter Meg, a rather attractive young woman with short, straight blonde hair and the most bewitching blue eyes, greeted me.

"The party's upstairs," she said.

"Thanks," I said, following her up the staircase.

"Good evening, Mr. Harkness," a deep, droning voice behind me caused me to turn and face none other than Dr. Hill. He had been in a sanitarium for a month after the—dreadful events I have been relating to you in the last twenty pages.

"I'm glad you're feeling better, doctor," I said cautiously, still a little suspicious. I still suspected that his hatred for West had not abated, and that once he got the chance he would take his revenge on the young scientist.

As we reached the room where the party was, I heard a not-so-very-good male singer finish singing some tired old carol. I saw West immediately as I entered and he smiled at me, though I couldn't help but see a trace of something sinister behind his smile. He was sitting near the piano, a little apart from the rest of the people at the party, and Meg quickly went up to the piano and began playing the opening to a song. She turned to Herbert. "Why don't you sing now? You're the only one who hasn't."

West smiled, and I actually detected a hint of shyness. "No, really, I don't want to—"

"Oh, come on," Meg said, and began playing. And to my amazement, my friend actually began singing along, though all the while I could see the glances that he and Dr. Hill exchanged—and they were far from pleasant.

Everyone clapped and cheered wildly when he finished, but I could not join in. For I also knew—somehow in the hidden regions of my subconscious—that my troubles—and the troubles of Arkham—were far from over. 


End file.
